Navigating through this thing called life is quite an interesting, one-of-a-kind experience. Sometimes it’s full of extraordinary experiences, other times it’s just really confusing and still other times, it takes dramatic turns and leaves us at the most unexpected stop trying to find our way all over again. Life is just an unending roller-coaster ride with ups and downs that are coming our way whether we’re ready for them or not.
Good news is life, even as unpredictable as it is, didn’t just happen. It wasn’t a wish upon a star or one of those adventures that are accidentally come upon by characters in adventure stories. No. Life was carefully and very intentionally planned and structured by the creator. Therefore, certain things in life don’t just happen; they are results, consequences, benefits or outputs of something else. For example, a seed buried in the soil will germinate, iron exposed to air will oxidize, if you throw something in the air, gravity will pull it down. These are all cause-and-effect principles on earth that cannot be altered. When the cause is initiated, the effect WILL happen.
In the same way, there are certain principles that determine the outcome of our lives. We need to know and follow them in order to live a fulfilled and purposeful life. We’re going to look at three of these principles today.
1. The Principle of Hard Work
Hard work equals success. That’s a principle we all know and have heard about since when we were young. It doesn’t matter the stage in life where we are at; whether it’s as a student, an employee, a mother, wife, or an entrepreneur, these principles applies to them all. The mother who spends more time researching, learning from others and reading books on parenting, will make a better parent than the one who doesn’t. The employee who works harder, trains harder and works constantly on improving themselves, will stand out from the others. The entrepreneur who puts in more work, research and passion towards growing his business will come out successful and this applies to every other person; the student, the wife, the husband, etc. Even though we know this, we don’t always follow it due to many reasons such as laziness, fear, settling for less, underestimating our capabilities and many others. Whatever the reason is, if you want to live out your best life, you’ve got to start putting in the work to achieve that.
Success doesn’t meet us at our door steps, we’ve got to work hard to get to it.
2. The Principle of Sowing
As I mentioned above, when we sow a seed in the soil, it will germinate and grow into something much bigger than it. God created the world in this way. He expects us to multiply whatever he makes available to us. What we need is the knowledge of how to multiply it. Imagine if we didn’t know that putting a seed in the ground will multiply it! Then the world will be losing a lot because of this lack of knowledge! Well thank God we have this knowledge.
In order to get whatever you want, you’ve got to let go of it.
If you want friends, you have to learn how to be a friend, if you want more time, you have to learn how to give some of your time away, if you want more money, you have to let go of some of the money you have, if you want to be loved, you’ve got to love and the list goes on. If we hold on to seeds, imagine how much we’ll be losing! Life is about multiplying what we have, after all that was the first command God gave man (COMMAND not request or suggestion or advice. see Genesis 1:28).
Contrary to what we might think, God structured life such that, when we give away something, we get back more of it.
3. The Principle of Relationship
When God in all his might and power created the earth, he didn’t do it alone, Jesus didn’t accomplish his purpose on earth alone; he had the 12 with him, Bill gates with all his wealth and knowledge cannot run Microsoft alone. God created us for relationship and community and he modeled that through Jesus and Himself.
“Nothing great can survive alone” Chigozie George
If we want to achieve great things in our lifetime, we need to learn how to work in community and to build relationships. We don’t have to be naturally gifted in this area to be good at it. We can learn and grow in it. What matters is we put in the effort.
So that’s it for today. We looked at three principles for a fulfilled life. I’d love to hear from you;
* What do you do to build solid and lasting relationships?
* What are somethings you can do to be a hard worker?
* What do you find hard to give away?
Leave a comment below.